Every Breath You Take

by Taylor Lee

  Chapter 22

  The crisp night air snaked up under her ankle-length skirt. Goose pimples rose on her bare skin. The skirt had a hidden slit, making it easy to remove when the time came. Lexie quivered in excitement knowing that the time would be soon. The feathery clouds streaking the sky played hide and seek with the moon. Lexie was grateful for the shadows they cast along the rocky path.

  The grounds next to the dark warehouse were speckled with trash. Lexie stabbed at an errant scrap of paper with her steel-pointed stick. Shoving the trash into the garbage bag over her shoulder, she pushed it to the bottom of the sack, avoiding her cache of weapons. As always her fiercest weapon was her battle sharpened body, but like the multi-faceted warrior that she was, she knew you didn’t bring a knife to a gun fight. Tonight, bullets—not martial arts artistry—would rule. The Kkangpae fighters had one tenet. Kill or be killed. Lexie grinned knowing that Jake’s team had a similar rule. It was: Take no prisoners. Per Jake’s order the only exception tonight would be the White Dragon.

  Lexie ignored the drunks and drugged out homeless people huddled in the arched doorways in the vacant building. She skirted the dirty men in tattered clothes reeking of filth and booze. One sleeping man, still clutching an empty bottle of rot gut whisky, rested against a beat up shopping cart filled with the necessities of a life lived in alleyways. Everything from rusted frying pans to heaps of dirty clothes and filthy blankets confirmed the vagrant was a savvy veteran of the mean streets.

  Lexie smoothed the loose tunic over her protruding belly and assumed the slight waddle of the weary pregnant women she’d seen in the marketplace. Hunching her shoulders against the chill, she bent over to retrieve another piece of trash. The distant sounds of cars were the only indication that the warehouse was near a thoroughfare. Lexie knew most of the hidden corners of the District especially those in the hub where the hard streets attracted prostitutes and their pimps and the druggies and their dealers. In contrast the warehouse was on the edge of the District, hidden from view. One would have to know beforehand that it was there to find it.

  From around the corner a harsh laugh sliced through the still night. Looking toward the street she saw a disheveled man leaning against a scantily clad prostitute. Lexie heard the woman encourage the drunken man to follow her. The whore’s crooning voice vibrated with the lewd promise of an illicit tryst. Lexie watched the couple totter off toward a clump of bushes, gratified that the moon chose that moment to duck behind the clouds. Convinced that they hadn’t noticed her, Lexie emptied the litter from her sack and returned to her back and forth course seeking pieces of trash.

  After close to an hour of steady work, Lexie heard the rumble of approaching vehicles. Glancing at her watch she saw it was close to midnight. A pickup truck followed by three paneled vans careened around the corner. Amidst the squealing sound of tires and shouts of laughter a crowd of armed men tumbled out of the back of the pickup. Lexie snuck a quick peek and counted eight men. Her relief at the relatively small number died when the doors of the vans slid open. Within minutes at least thirty Korean men filled the area, laughing and shouting to one another. Their bamboo dong sticks tucked in their belts along with their descriptive tats decreed that they were Hapkido warriors, practitioners of the fiercest form of the Korean martial arts. Their lithe muscled bodies and confident shouts confirmed that they were armed and ready for anyone foolish enough to confront them.

  Lexie kept up her monotonous shuffle spearing scraps of trash from the littered grounds. Ignoring the rude overtures and ugly gestures of the fierce dark-eyed warriors she passed, Lexie sized up the contingent. Assuming that the drivers of the trucks due to arrive at any moment were accompanied by at least five or six guards, her team was facing close to fifty highly skilled Kkangpae fighters. Sucking air she counted her breaths silently, ensuring that each intake of air was matched by an equally long exhalation. The time honored practice of martial artists blanketed her body with oxygen and calmed her busy mind allowing her to focus on the upcoming battle.

  Knowing only snippets of Korean, it wasn’t hard to decipher the lewd taunts of the young fighters pointing at her belly as she passed by. Lexie kept her head down. Her role was to distract their opponents. Her monotonous treks back and forth were intended to make her invisible, just one more poor woman, attempting the impossible: clean up the dirty streets in the District.

  The easy bantering and trash talk ricocheting among the young fighters came to a halt at the sounds of the approaching tractor trailers rounding the corner. The huge semi’s were impressive. Knowledgeable truckers and those at checkpoints would recognize the technology implied by the white domed satellite centers topping the cabs. Everything from GPS systems to widescreen televisions were included in the state of the art vehicles. In these particular eighteen wheelers the technology was not intended to entertain the drivers. Rather it was to alert both the shippers and the receivers of the illicit cargo that they were safe from the prying eyes of nosy border guards and ICE agents.

  ~~~

  Jake watched from the doorway of the warehouse as the drivers and guards spewed from the trucks. Like Lexie, he’d kept track of the size of the contingent they were about to face. All of his men except Lexie were ex-military, more specifically, Special Forces. The expert cadre included former Delta Force, Army Rangers and a couple of Seals. His band of off-the-grid fighters had more than a hundred years of expertise. Again, with the exception of Lexie, all of the men and Tiffany had served under Jake, some in active duty, others had joined the elite former agents after they left the military. To a person, they abhorred rules, fought to the death, and would follow Jake Gardner to the gates of hell.

  Using hand signals Jake communicated with his twenty person team. It was clear they were outnumbered. Jake had known they would be but had not expected this much of a disparity in numbers. Fortunately they had the element of surprise on their side. The plan was simple. Once they’d confirmed how many men they were facing, they had two tasks. Protect the young girls and kill their captors. And capture alive the White Dragon, Jake reminded himself. Given the fifty warriors they were facing, Jake grimaced. A contingent this size spoke to at least that many young women locked inside the steel canisters. The deceptively ordinary looking tractor trailers were labeled with colorful pictures of fruits and vegetables, their supposed cargo.

  Jake’s investigators confirmed that each semi could hold as many as thirty girls stuffed into slender tubes packed under cartons of fruits and vegetables. The photographs they’d seen of the hideous personal prisons allowed for air and waste removal, but no light or sound. Jake shuddered at the terror the young girls must feel locked inside the steel shells. Horrified at the thought, he prayed that the hideous men who shoved them into the tubes had the decency to drug the girls first.

  As Lexie crossed in front of him, he marveled that except to their eyes, she had become an accepted part of the scenery. It was what they intended. They needed a scout. Someone who could literally blend into the landscape and be close enough to take the first shot. Lexie easily convinced the rest of the team that the ‘scout’ couldn’t be a man. Even in disguise a man would threaten trained warriors guarding precious cargo. That left only two choices, Lexie or Tiffany. Lexie narrowed the choice to one when she conceived of her brilliant disguise. She argued that even the most soulless warriors, who degraded everyone and everything in their path, would not hurt a pregnant woman in the last stages of pregnancy. At first, Jake refused to consider her proposal. But after batting around more than a dozen suggestions, Jake had to acknowledge the genius of Lexie’s disguise. But watching her trudge across the grounds within an arm’s length of the Kkangpae fighters, Jake wasn’t sure when he would be able to draw a full breath. Since the fighters had arrived he’d had to stifle his breaths. After the trucks arrived his concern went from how to quiet his gasps to how he would be able to breathe at all.

  The drivers and guards huddled in a large circle. One of the guards, an o
lder man who the others called Gun-woo, stepped forward. As he watched the presumed leader take control, Jake noted and stored away the fact that all of the men were Korean. None were white. As he’d feared, the White Dragon had foregone the event.

  The small wiry man spoke in short staccato phrases, barking out orders. The Kkangpae fighters stood at a respectful distance, listening intently. At his command they closed in on the trucks. In a studied formation, indicating they were familiar with the routine, the men separated in two groups. Each contingent focused on one of the trucks. Two of the guards opened the rear cargo doors. Six to eight men jumped inside and within minutes began shoving cartons of produce out the doors into the arms of the men waiting outside. When all the cartons had been removed and stood in neat stacks to the side, the men began opening the containers holding the girls.

  From his angle, Jake could see into the back of the trucks. Even knowing what to expect, he was shocked at the sight before them. One by one dazed, semi-comatose young women were passed from man to man in a hideous assembly line. Some of the girls were awake enough to cry out but were quickly silenced by a blow from one of the guards. Several guards opened the paneled vans and began placing the girls inside. As the number of girls grew, the guards began unceremoniously tossing the newcomers through the door onto what had become a teeming mass of human misery.

  Jake didn’t know how much more he or his men could take without attacking. But their mission dictated that they hold back until all the girls were ‘safely’ inside the vans. There was another reason Jake held back: Lexie was still in the center of the road. She’d halted her methodical trekking and was now silently crouching behind the wheel of one of the large trucks. As they had planned she’d become invisible to the guards. If anyone noticed her, they disregarded her, likely assuming that one of their fellow underlings would put a bullet through her before they left. As in countless previous missions, Jake could sense the tension in his team positioned around the perimeter they had established. Finally the hideous work of the oblivious guards came to a close. The guards slammed the doors shut on each of the three paneled vans. For a few short seconds all you could hear were the muffled cries from the terrified human cargo locked inside.

  Taking what was sure to be the deepest breath of his life, Jake acknowledged Lexie’s sign and gave her the signal to go forward. With an earsplitting Hapkido yell, Lexie burst into full view. Before the startled warriors could react, she reached inside the long slits on either side of her ‘maternity’ tunic and yanked out two Hk416 rifles. Raking the ferocious weapons from side to side Lexie mowed down at least a third of the Kkangpae warriors in the first seconds of her assault. That was all the time the rest of the team needed to emerge from their ‘hiding’ places where they’d been sequestered in plain view. In seconds, twenty men dressed in filthy clothes and dirt streaked faces rose from the doorways and shadows and advanced on the Kkangpae. The infamous Jopok fighters didn’t have a chance. Lexie’s initial assault had evened the odds between their team and their opponents. Surprise took care of the rest. Jake saw Gun-woo skittering under one of the vans and shouted to his men to let him go.

  Waiting until the odious creature slithered from under the back of a van and slunk toward the weeds, Jake shot a carefully aimed bullet into the despicable miscreant’s knee. When the scoundrel screamed in pain, Jake slammed a second bullet into his other kneecap. Throwing the screaming man onto his back, Jake yelled for Peter who was already vaulting toward them. Jake grabbed Gun-woo by his hair and yanked his head back. Jake pressed the barrel of his gun against the ‘apricot’ at the base of the man’s skull and nodded to Peter. In rapid fire Korean, Peter ascertained that the White Dragon was not on site. When the terrified man could not or would not reveal the kingpin’s name, Peter shrugged. Jake nodded and pulled the trigger.

  Off to the side, Brady barked into his com. Within minutes, three nondescript vans pulled in next to the trucks, their squealing tires filled the eerie silence. Jake’s undercover team of agents sprung into the vans which pulled away before the men inside had time to close the doors. Dan Rourke and Mark Peterson and ten of their elite Vice Squad leapt from the fourth van to arrive onsite. This vehicle was significant in that it was clearly marked with the SFPD insignia. As arranged, Dan had chosen his squad from an undercover police contingent that was almost as secret as Jake’s team. If all went as planned, Jake had intended that at this point Dan Rourke would take control of the operation. He and Brady, Peter, Lexie and Tiffany would be on site as “advisers” and backup. What the public and the press would see was a spectacular take down of fifty members of the Jopok sex trade by the SFPD Vice Squad under the leadership of Captain Dan Rourke.

  Within thirty minutes the blocks surrounding the warehouse were cordoned off and traffic was being shunted to the side streets. Dozens of police cars, ambulances and fire engines were on site. Scores of uniformed police and firefighters along with EMT’s and medical personnel filled the area. It wasn’t long before the satellite trucks arrived and a cadre of policemen was assigned to manage the press. News helicopters fighting for award-winning news shots added to the frenzy of the scene below. Crowds of bystanders streamed to the site eager to see in person what they’d been watching on their television sets.

  It was a remarkable scene. According to the breathless press reports, the SFPD Vice Squad had busted the delivery of over fifty young Korean women bound for the District brothels and a life of misery. The public reacted in horror to the sight of dozens of terrified emaciated women being treated by first responders. They watched in frozen shock as the victims were bundled into waiting ambulances and carted off with sirens blazing to the nearest hospitals. Meantime the hospitals were frantically preparing for the onslaught of new patients and the fanatical press. Equally alarming were the stacks of bodies, Jopok men presumably killed in the raid.

  Surrounded by reporters and cameras, Captain Rourke fielded questions from the rabid press corps. Lexie stood at his side adeptly managing the zealous reporters. Gone was her disguise, in its place she wore sweatpants and a Forty-niners sweatshirt. With her long blonde hair streaming around her shoulders Lexie still managed to look glamorous. Jake, Brady, Peter and Tiffany stood in the background.

  Not long after the press arrived, a black town car with sirens screaming worked its way through the crowd. Along with their bodyguards, Police Commissioner Roberts and Commissioner Craig Spellman spilled from the recesses of the official car. Jake and Peter met them at the side of the makeshift stage. Jake rattled off the critical elements of the version of events they’d concocted for the press.

  When he finished briefing them, Jake motioned the two Commissioners to the stage.

  With an ironic grin, he murmured in a low voice, “Go for it, Gentlemen. Take all the credit you are due.”

  ~~~

  His voice was unusually calm, which made it more chilling.

  “You have failed me. Completely. Absolutely.”

  “I… I know it seems like that, Sir. But—”

  “Silence! You are an incompetent idiot! Can you deny that they know your identity?”

  “No… no. I… mean… my moniker, the White Dragon, is known, I admit. But no one but you, and my partner, know my true identity.

  “Surely you are not so naive you don’t know how easily they will discover who you are.”

  “I acknowledge that their sources—her sources—may figure out my identity.”

  “Which means one thing. She must go. Immediately. They both must die. She and Gardner. Now.”

  “Yes… yes. I understand. We… my partner and I have put a plan in action. It can’t fail. The enforcers will be to blame for their deaths, which will protect you.”

  “Foolish person. I am always protected. I am invincible.”

  “Yes, yes, Sir. I understand that you are. But… given the size of the event there are likely to be additional ‘casualties’.”

  “Just make sure that the enforcers do not kill the po
litical elite. We will need them in the future.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “One more thing. If she and Gardner are not dead by morning, you will be.”

  “Um, ah… yes, Sir. I assure you, they will be dead.”

  The buzzing sound indicated he’d hung up—without bothering to repeat his threat.

  Chapter 23

  Craig Spellman rose to his feet and rapped on his glass to get the attention of the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, I invited you here tonight to celebrate an important milestone. For months, in truth for years, our city has been plagued by a hideous cancer. Part of a worldwide epidemic, the international human trafficking industry has been invading our beautiful city. They are bringing young women from around the world to our city against their will and selling them to the brothels as prostitutes. Two days ago, we achieved a hard-earned victory in this war against the exploitation of women. I declare that tonight represents only the first of many victories until we have eliminated this hideous scourge.”

  A round of applause greeted his proclamation.

  Multicolored lights sparkled over the spacious stone patio on Spellman’s extraordinary mansion. Fresh flowers and candles decorated the dinner tables and a string quartet was an elegant addition to the celebratory affair. As if the beautiful spring evening wanted in on the festivities, a full moon and hundreds of bright stars lit the night.

  Both Craig Spellman and Tom Roberts had insisted that they have this party. Looking at the assembled group, Jake conceded it was the right thing to do. Along with the Mayor and other dignitaries Spellman invited key players in his department. Likewise, Tom Roberts ensured that Dan Rourke and Mark Peterson were honored guests, along with as many members of the Vice Squad who could afford public scrutiny.